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He gestured for Emmie to follow him to the kitchen, and she did without hesitation.
He was so good with her, so gentle and warm, when he was cold and harsh with me more often than not. After how he’d shut us down, trying too hard to pretend he didn’t care when we’d talked about Emmie first, this was a surprise. I’d known it was inside of him, hiding behind the mask he worked so hard to uphold, but he was letting it show.
Wesley confused me. I should have been worried about leaving Emmie alone with him, but I wasn’t. I had no idea why, but I trusted him with her. She brought out a softer side in him, a side he refused to show, but it was all there.
I turned back to Circe.
“It’s been a tough couple of days,” she said.
“You have no idea.”
She pointed at the living room, and I followed her to a couch before I sank down on it.
“Tell me about it,” she said.
14
DANNA
Wesley had a weird schedule, always up at night and sleeping during the day. It meant that most of the time, when we were awake, he was asleep.
The next few days passed in a blur. We got settled into the penthouse, where for the first time since the initial kidnapping, I felt safe.
The penthouse was huge. It was stretched out across the entire top two floors of the hotel, which meant that the rooms were large, and there were many of them.
Emmie loved it here. It was so different from the house we stayed in, in Portland.
When I’d moved into that house, it had been rundown. Josephine—the woman who’d passed away and left me the house purely because I was a distant relative—had severely neglected the place, and with the small amount of cash I’d had, I hadn’t exactly been able to remodel it. I’d patched up what I could, but the place had been just short of being a dump.
Here, everything was luxurious and expensive and comfortable. Emmie had her own bedroom, sandwiched between my room and Circe’s, and the upstairs dining room had turned into her playroom.
Wesley spent a lot of time in his living room and on the balcony, so I didn’t let Emmie take over that space. I didn’t want to impose any more than we already were.
On Wednesday morning, almost two weeks after we’d come to stay at the penthouse, I was up before the break of dawn. I didn’t know what had woken me up, but it wasn’t danger. I’d started to learn what that felt like, and this wasn’t it.
Whatever it was, I wasn’t able to go back to sleep.
I got up and walked toward the kitchen. I wore my pajama shorts and a tank top, and I’d put on a silky robe—all these pieces of clothing had come from Virginia, who continued to make sure our closets were taken care of.
It was almost as if we lived here, with everything that had been brought here for us.
I was halfway to the kitchen when I realized Wesley was home, sitting on one of the stools at the wet bar in his living room.
My steps faltered.
“You’re here,” I said.
Wesley nodded and sipped a glass of clear liquid, which I assumed was vodka. He only wore a pair of gray sweatpants, his naked torso a sight to behold. He was muscles stacked on muscles, a chiseled chest, powerful arms, and even though he wasn’t flexing, he looked like he’d stepped right off the cover of a magazine.
I had to force myself not to stare, and I dragged my eyes up to his face.
“Is everything okay?” I asked.
“Fine,” he said. “It’s my day off. I usually spend it at home.”
I tried to remember what had happened the last two Wednesdays we’d been here, but I hadn’t seen him then.
“Do you want a drink?” Wesley offered when I hesitated.
